by Sharon Potts
It could have been a lawyerly tactic to cover his own involvement, but she would play along.
“One of the members of Stormdrain attended Columbia Law School,” she said. “He would have been a student when you were.”
“You mean Jeffrey Schwartz?”
Her chin shot up. “How did you know I meant him?”
“Everyone knew about Jeffrey. It was quite a big deal at the law school back then. One of our own being involved with April Fool and going underground. Then, of course, he became big news in ’81 after the killings at the bank, and again about twenty years ago when that crazy man came forward claiming to be Jeffrey Schwartz.”
She was relieved he was so matter-of-fact in the way he talked about him. “Sometimes I forget these were once front-page stories,” she said.
Jonathan rubbed one of his inflamed knuckles. “But I had also known Jeffrey personally. He started with me in ’68. We were in the same Constitutional Law study group.”
“You knew him? How well?”
“Not very, I’m afraid. Jeffrey was brilliant—I remember that. He had the sharpest mind in our group when he spoke, which wasn’t often.”
“Did you have contact with him outside of your study group and class?”
He shook his head.
“Did you know he was involved with Stormdrain?”
“Not until after April Fool.” He took a bite of chili. “In fact, now that I think of it, I can’t say I recall Jeffrey in any of my classes during our second year. I probably would never have given him another thought except for his involvement with those terrible tragedies.”
“Have you seen or spoken to Jeffrey since?”
He had a shocked expression on his face. “Of course not. Why are you asking me this?”
“As you said, I’m leaving no stone unturned.”
He shook his head. “These things happened long ago, Diana. It was an awful time for many of us. Must you exhume it?”
“Yes, I must,” she said. “Did you know anyone else involved with Stormdrain?”
He dropped his eyes abruptly, as though she had hit a nerve. He took a sip of water, then smoothed his few graying hairs over the bald spot on the top of his head. “I knew a woman in the group. We dated for a short while.”
“Jesus,” she said. “You dated someone in Stormdrain and never told me?”
“Why would I have told you? I dated several women in college and law school.”
Under ordinary circumstances, this would have made sense. Jonathan hadn’t known about her own involvement with Stormdrain, so there would have been no reason to bring up some woman he had once dated. Yet, with Ethan’s disappearance, this took on a whole new significance.
“I don’t know what she saw in me,” he said. “I was a boring law student, and she was this wild firebrand.”
Wild firebrand. There was only one woman in Stormdrain who fit that description. “What was her name?” Diana asked.
“What does it matter?” he said.
“Who was she, Jonathan?”
He shied back like a horse at the question. Or maybe it was her tone of voice.
“Gertrude,” he said. “Gertrude Morgenstern.”
He had dated Gertrude. How could she not have known?
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Her voice was too loud in her own ears.
He stared at his freckled hands, folded in front of him on the table. “It wasn’t something I was proud of.”
The bell on the front door chimed. A young man and woman in their jogging clothes came inside. It registered that the man had one prosthetic leg.
Diana made an effort to slow down her breathing. If she wanted Jonathan to open up, she had to stop being accusatory.
“I never told anyone about my relationship with Gertrude,” Jonathan said. “Can you imagine what it might have done to me politically if it had come out that I once dated one of the organizers of Stormdrain?”
Diana knew exactly what it would have done. It would have leveled his career. He never would have been considered for the Supreme Court. She took another sip of water. Her brain was getting foggy with overload. Jonathan had dated Gertrude. Jeffrey Schwartz had dated Gertrude.
“How long did you see each other?” she asked, making an effort to keep her voice even.
“Three months or so. Rarely in public. I’m not sure if she didn’t want us to be seen together, or she enjoyed our private time as much as I did. I’m a little ashamed to say, I was happy enough with the arrangement. She would come to my room late at night, then leave a few hours later. I didn’t get very much sleep those three months.”
“Did you know she was also seeing Jeffrey Schwartz?”
He sighed. “It doesn’t surprise me.”
Her mind was racing. “Do you think it’s possible Jeff is behind Ethan’s kidnapping and the ultimatum?”
His brow creased. “That doesn’t make sense. Why now, after forty-five years?”
To punish her, of course, but how could she explain that to Jonathan? “What happened between you and Gertrude?” she asked instead.
“Well, I can’t say we went out with a whimper,” he said. “It was quite a scene, actually. Not like anything I’d experienced before, or since.”
He glanced over at the young man and woman who were tasting each other’s ice-cream cones at the counter. “She was very angry with me,” he said. “I would say disappointed, but it went much deeper than that.”
“Why? What did she want from you?”
“To share her ideals. To join her.”
“But you didn’t want to commit to something political that might hurt your future?”
“Oh, dear, Diana. That sounds a bit harsh.”
“Help me understand.”
“I’m afraid it’s true,” he said. “I admired what SDS and the Weathermen and Stormdrain wanted to accomplish. At least, initially. Stop the war. Fight prejudice against blacks. Make government accountable for its actions. But once the organizations decided violence was a justified means to their end, I wanted nothing to do with them.”
The doorbell chimed. The young couple left with their ice creams. The man walked naturally, completely at ease in his artificial limb.
“But Gertrude did,” she said.
“Gertrude not only advocated violence, she demanded it.” His eyes had become moist and shiny. “She insisted I join her in her ultimate grand gesture, or else. I told her I wanted no part of it, or of her. She left my room, angrier than I’ve ever seen anyone.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Maybe I could have stopped it. Maybe I could have saved her.”
“Nothing could have saved her,” Diana said.
He put his glasses back on. “I imagine you tried.”
The breath snagged in her chest. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” He waved his hand ineffectually. His face was flushed.
Jonathan was holding something back.
“What else haven’t you told me?” she said.
He ran his tongue over his lips. “I knew you back then.”
“You knew me?”
“Well, not exactly. I knew who you were. I knew you were Gertrude’s roommate.”
His face went in and out of focus. This man she loved and was planning to marry had lied to her.
Deceived her.
Just like Larry had.
“Please don’t be upset with me, Diana.”
“Did you know who I was when we met?” she asked.
“I wasn’t sure. When we were first introduced at the Columbia event, I thought it was you, even though your name was different. You haven’t changed much, though I certainly have.” He touched his bald spot, a feeble attempt to lighten the mood. “I once had a full head of long red hair, a moustache and a beard.” He paused. “Did you remember me when we first met?”
“No. I would have said something if I had. Why didn’t you?”
“And tell you what, exactly? That I knew you’d been the roo
mmate of an extremist from Stormdrain? A woman I’d had a relationship with? It would have been uncomfortable for both of us.”
“And later?” she asked. “When we got to know each other better? There were plenty of opportunities for you to have mentioned it.”
“As more time passed, it became awkward to bring it up.”
“Well, it’s no longer awkward, Jonathan. Now it simply feels like you’ve deliberately lied to me.”
“No, Diana. It isn’t like that.” He reached across the table for her hand. His fingers were cold. She pulled away.
She had trusted Jonathan. But if he had deceived her about knowing her in college and had never told her about his relationship with Gertrude, what else had he lied about?
“Tell me the truth, Jonathan. Why didn’t you ever talk to me about Gertrude or Stormdrain or April Fool?”
“I’ve tried very hard to block out those days.”
“Why?” she asked. “What was it to you?”
He stared at the white tiled floor, yellowed and cracked with age. “Losing Gertrude was devastating,” he said. “I loved her very much.”
The words smacked Diana across her cheek with an old, familiar sting. She felt violated and hurt, but she wasn’t sure whether it was because Jonathan had lied to her, or because the old rivalry between her and Gertrude was still alive.
But how could that be? Gertrude was dead.
CHAPTER 24
Two blond children around Ethan’s age were splashing each other at the shallow end of the hotel pool. Aubrey watched their parents put water wings on their arms and set out a pail with an assortment of plastic animals on the steps.
If only we could always be around to watch over our children. To forever be like the untouched family in her snow globe. She was glad Kevin had gone back up to his room and didn’t have to see this happy family. He had left abruptly after their talk, clearly upset. She had hoped to comfort him, but had only succeeded in bringing his feelings of guilt to the surface.
Given what she knew of family relationships, she shouldn’t have been surprised that she and Kevin had viewed that awful period in their childhood so differently, but she had been. For Kev, it had been the “War of the Lynds,” something he blamed himself for, while she had always associated the change in her parents with the kidnapping of Jimmy Ryce. Regardless of what had caused it, their parents’ subsequent coldness toward each other had left its mark on both her and Kev. They had spent much of their childhood careful not to do anything that might upset either parent.
They had been a dysfunctional family, but she and Kev had both believed that was better than a broken family. Considering the scars she could see in herself and her brother, maybe it would have been better if they had just let go.
But “what ifs” didn’t matter right now, not with Ethan missing. She got up and went back inside the hotel. She would check on whether there were any new developments, then head home so she could get back to her own research.
The command center was as busy as when she had left nearly an hour earlier. Prudence and Ernest were still at a table in the midst of their investigators. Her father and Star had arrived while she was with Kevin and were standing by themselves in a corner of the room. They were agitated, as though in the midst of a disagreement. Her father’s face was flushed, and Star stood stiffly, her short white hair standing on end like the crest of a cockatoo. Star turned and walked quickly toward the main door, silky-blue pants and top flowing behind her, a huge Louis Vuitton tote over her shoulder. She caught Aubrey watching her, changed direction as subtly as a navigator adjusting her course, and came toward her. The muscles in Star’s face shifted from tense to concerned.
“Well, hello, Aubrey,” she said, in her slow southern drawl. “I didn’t see you before. Is your mother here, too?”
“No. Just me.”
She brushed nonexistent hair back from her face with her jeweled fingers in what seemed to be a nervous or distracted gesture. There were dark circles under her blue eyes and a web of fine lines beneath her makeup that Aubrey hadn’t noticed the night before in the time-share apartment. She didn’t believe Star was genuinely concerned about Ethan and wondered what she was losing sleep over.
“I imagine her fiancé is a comfort to her,” Star said.
“We’re all trying to comfort each other.”
“I only ask because I care about her,” Star said, possibly picking up the coolness in Aubrey’s voice. “And, yes, perhaps I’m also feeling a little guilty that your father is here with me when your mother’s the one who could use his support.” Star patted her arm. “I’m not a witch, dear. I hope you’ll believe that.”
Not a witch, but certainly witchlike.
Her father stepped between them. “Hello, Aubrey,” he said with a formal nod, probably still angry about their argument the night before.
“Dad.”
“I’m going to get a cup of tea,” Star said. “Can I bring back something for either of you?” They both said no and thanked her, and Star left them.
Her father rubbed the back of his neck and surveyed the room, as though at a loss for something to say. “Quite an operation they put together,” he said. “You’ve got to give the Simmers that much.”
“What were you and Star arguing about?”
He pressed his lips together and stared at the door Star had left through. The flatness of his expression was very different from the passionate man in the photo that her mother had shown her this morning. A white knight upon a snowy stallion. But no more. At least not for Mama or Aubrey.
“Star’s exhausted,” he said. “We both are. It’s put us on edge.”
“I see.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound dismissive.” He touched her arm. “Why don’t we step outside?”
They left the room and found a couple of chairs at the end of the hallway.
“This is better,” he said, sitting down. “There are a lot of ears in there.”
“And you don’t want them to hear something?”
He looked down at the gold-and-blue swirl-patterned carpet. “You never know who’s on your team and who isn’t.”
A memory nagged at her. She had been eight and was playing in a neighborhood soccer league. Mama hadn’t been able to get to the game, but Dad was home from a long out-of-town trial and came to cheer her on. She was so proud of her handsome father shouting to her from the bleachers.
“Run, Princess!” Somehow, she got turned around and kicked the ball into her own team’s goal. She didn’t understand why her teammates were yelling at her, why some of the grown-ups had angry faces.
“Stupid kid,” one of the mothers said.
Her father glared at the woman, scooped Aubrey up, and carried her away from the field. He let her cry against his chest until she ran out of tears. Then he took her to Frazier’s and bought her a pistachio ice-cream sundae.
He told her something she had forgotten until now.
I’m proud of you for trying your best, Princess. That’s what matters. Sometimes things happen. You get confused. You want so much to help your team, but you end up hurting them. But you can’t keep punishing yourself. You have to try to move on.
Now, she couldn’t help but wonder what team he had hurt and whether he had ever moved on.
“Tell me about your mother,” he said, turning his attention from the carpet. His voice was uncharacteristically gentle. “How’s she holding up?”
Mama had been looking at photos of him this morning. Thinking of him, too. But was he genuinely concerned about her, or asking to be polite?
She met his eyes. Bloodshot like Kevin’s. “She’s doing okay.”
He let out a small sigh. “You don’t believe I have a right to worry about her, but I do. Especially after the attack against her by those people last night.”
“You attacked her, too, yesterday. Blamed her for Ethan going missing.”
“I was upset. I never had any doubt that your mother loves Et
han and only has the best intentions toward him. But the Coles are a couple of contemptible slanderers.”
“The Simmers seem to believe they’re behind the kidnapping.”
“They have their own reasons for diverting the investigation toward the Coles,” her father said. “It takes the heat off them.”
“You think the Simmers are involved?”
He shook his head. “I almost wish that were the case.”
“Then who do you think has Ethan?”
“Last night, you were very hard on me.”
Why was he changing the subject? “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was frustrated. Ethan’s missing, and I don’t understand why you—”
He held up his hand. “You made me think about things I would have preferred to keep buried.”
She shuddered with apprehension. But this was what she wanted. To know whether her parents were keeping secrets from her. Secrets that might be connected to Ethan’s disappearance. “What things?”
“In the past. My past, your mother’s past. And I began to wonder whether someone from those days could have kidnapped Ethan to get back at us.”
She sat up straighter. Her mother had denied this possibility last night. “Back at you for what? Tell me, Dad. You’re talking in riddles.”
A little girl in a long party dress with ribbons streaming from her hair came racing down the long hallway, giggling. She stopped a short distance from them and darted behind a heavy drape.
Her father stared at the shifting drape.
“What would someone want to get back at you for?” Aubrey asked again.
“Your mother and I were involved with a radical organization in college.”
Why hadn’t Mama told her this?
“Things went very wrong,” her father said. “Three of our friends died.”
“Jesus, Dad. Were you and Mom members of Stormdrain?”
His face paled. He covered it with his hands.
Aubrey became dizzy, as though she were standing on top of a ladder, about to fall over. “Were you?” she asked again. “Were you involved with Stormdrain?”
He didn’t answer. Just sat with his hands over his eyes.
She felt a sensation like hundreds of ants crawling over her arms and back. Her mother had said she’d been walking past the brownstone when it exploded, but she had specifically said she hadn’t been responsible.
